Friday, August 29, 2014

Get ready to train
your hardest and cheer on your team, The Crystal Games are here! This
is the much anticipated second expansion set for the MLP: CCG and
contains over 200 cards, so gamers and collectors alike will be eager to
see what's in every pack! This set focuses on the characters,
locations, and events of the Crystal Empire along with Equestria Games.
Mane Characters will include Spike, the CMC's, Cadance, and Shining
Armor. In addition, fans will enjoy using a very special background pony
that will appear as both a Mane Character and a Friend for the very
first time. Each pack contains 12 collectible cards and a chance of
containing a stunning special foil card!

Deliver the magic
of friendship with the My Little Pony Collectible Card Game! Everything a
single player needs to get into this fun & strategic 2-player game
is included within. This set focuses on the characters, locations, and
events of the Crystal Empire along with Equestria Games. Mane Characters
will include Spike, the CMC's, Cadance, and Shining Armor. In addition,
fans will enjoy using a very special background pony that will appear
as both a Mane Character and a Friend for the very first time. The
Crystal Games are about to begin, so choose your Mane Character, round
up some Friend Cards, and go lend a hoo but watch out for Troublemakers!
Collect and play with your favorite characters!

My Little Pony CCG
Players will be celebrating the arrival of this deluxe boxed set filled
with fun new gameplay and highly collectible items. MLP: CCG Celestial
Solstice has 2 exclusive oversized Mane Character cards with very
special lenticular 3-D treatment, plus 8 new foil cards with 3 copies of
each to maximize playability. You also get 70 card protector sleeves
featuring Princess Celestia and Luna (10 sleeves for your problem deck
and 60 for your draw deck). It's all packaged in a stunning deck box to
hold this coveted collection & more!

Saturday, August 23, 2014

The store was invited to set up at d20 Expo, the one day game day put on to serve as a set for the KODT Live Action Series. Essentially, our set up in in the background as a dealer at the con the Knights attend during the middle of the series.

I got to watch (and be an extra in) last night's filming at the store swerving as Weird Pete's Games Pit, Hard Knox Games in Elizabethtown, Ky. and I have a better understanding of how it can take so long to film a movie. To shot a five minute scene featuring Dave, Bob and Weird Pete took just under three hours. Incidentally, if you see the series when it finally releases, that's Jolly Blackburn, creator of KODT as the customer Weird Pete yells at to "get yer Cheetos stained fingers off that book". I am standing to the right of Jolly, looking at a Warhammer 40,000 figure box.

INDIANAPOLIS (August 19, 2014)
Gen Con 2014, completed August 14-17 at the Indiana Convention Center,
experienced another year of record attendance numbers and unprecedented
growth. For the fourth consecutive year, Gen Con grew by more than 10%.
This year, reaching more than 14% year-over-year growth with a weekend
turnstile attendance of 184,699 and unique attendance of 56,614. This
number surpasses 2013’s previous record of 49,530 unique attendees.
Since 2009, Gen Con’s annual attendance has more than doubled.

“Gen Con 2014 is a testament to a more than decade-long relationship
between Indianapolis and the game industry, which has culminated in the
best attendee experience yet,” said Adrian Swartout, CEO and owner of
Gen Con LLC. “Gen Con is a massive yearly adventure that would not be
possible without the collaboration and support of our show sponsors,
exhibitors, event organizers, volunteers, local business partners, the
Indy community, and of course, our attendees.”

Another new record in 2014 was set for donations to Gen Con’s Official
Charity Partner. Gen Con raised more than $40,000 for Gleaners Food Bank
of Indiana’s BackSacks program, which provides weekend food to children
at-risk for hunger. This donation includes a $20,000 check provided by
Mayfair Games’ Cones of Dunshire event, a charitable game played
Saturday, August 16 on Georgia Street.

"Since their first show in Indy in 2003, Gen Con has evolved into more
than just a great convention for gamers - it's become a one-of-a-kind
cultural event," said Leonard Hoops, president & CEO of Visit Indy.
"The entire Indy hospitality community is proud to host Gen Con and we
congratulate their team on yet another record-breaking year."

Due to Gen Con’s expansion throughout the Indiana Convention Center, the
show also featured record numbers of exhibitors (370+) and events
(14,000+).
Gen Con 2015 will return to Indianapolis July 30 - August 2, 2015.

Monday, August 18, 2014

I am not attending GenCon this year but am keeping up with
news and new releases announced there through a very hopping Twitter feed.
Facebook updates are interesting but usually discuss booth set-up, how tired
people were, or how amazing (or not) sales were. People are using Twitter to
announce news about new releases.

Ergo, some major announcements from Steve
Jackson Games and Fantasy Flight Games

Take Steve Jackson Games (please). They launched Hipster
Dice and Classic Car Warsat GenCon and
announced the following Munchkin releases:Love Shark Baby, a 15 card expansion pack for Munchkin coming next
January just in time for St. Valentines Day;Munchkin Kobolds Ate My Baby (All hail King Torg. You get the joke if
you’ve ever played a game of Kobolds) though no indication as to whether it
will release as a 15 card pack, 112 card set or a full boxed set(my money is on the full boxed set though I
have my doubts that Kobolds Ate My Baby (All hail King Torg) is strong enough
to support a full box set) and the big get Munchkin Apocalypse Judge
Dread.I have commented before on the amount of licensing Steve Jackson Games
has done with Munchkin in the past year so more licenses do not particularly
surprise me but the Judge Dred one is pretty spiffy. Like Kobolds Ate My Baby
(All hail King Torg), I do not know if Judge Dred still pulls enough attention
in the market to drive large Munchkin sales.

Adventure Time will,
though, and I saw one picture showing Munchkin Adventure Time already on the
racks at GenCon.Given the anticipation for that version, it would have been
nice if USAopoly had managed to get it in stores at the same time as they offered
it for sale at GenCon. WotC and Paizo were both able to do it, so a company
with the distribution expertise of USAopoly ought to be able to do so.

Board Game Geek did ae exemplary job live tweeting the
Fantasy Flight Games presentation mentioning in the first few minutes that
Fantasy Flight has grown over 25% annually since 2000 and that the company has
shipped more than 30,000 Organized Play kits.That’s a lot of Organized Play.

Other notable announcements during the presentation:X-Wing will introduce the Scum and Villainy
faction later this fall with about 7 ships coming in the wave, as well as an
online “Mission Control” system for players to track what they own for the
game; Star Wars Armada for outer space mass combat coming out early 2105, along
with Imperial Assault, a miniatures board game somewhat similar to Descent;
Mountains of Madness for Eldritch Horror late this year, along with Order and
Chaos for the Netrunner LCG.Armada and
Imperial Assault both have quite a lot of potential but price on them will be
key. A big selling point of X-Wing is the comparatively low price point for
entry into the game.

By the way, if you get a copy of the new Advanced Class
Guide for Pathfinder, check out the major proofreading error on the front
cover. Bet that gets changed by the next printing.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Dungeons & Dragons is, in the eyes of most people
outside of the hobby game industry, THE role playing game. They haven’t seen Pathfinder,
Castles & Crusades, FATE, 13th Age, Numenera or Dark Heresy
played on Community or The Big Bang Theory. Despite the fact that D&D did not rank in
the top 5 sellers according to ICV2’s spring sales
chart, (though lack of new D&D product certainly had something to do
with that), viewers saw Dungeons &
Dragons played and in the viewers’ minds, there are no others.

Casual customers
will come in looking for the new D&D books, as they have heard of them
through popular media and we will hopefully sell them a copy of the $20 Starter
Set. While I expect to sell quite a few Advanced Class Guides and fewer copies
of the Iron Gods campaign, I do not expect to have any casual customers coming
in looking for either of those books.

Monday, August 11, 2014

If you are a WOTC Premier Store (I think that is what the
company calls us these days), the D&D 5th Edition Players
Handbook hit the shelves this past Friday (Mass merchants, non-Premier stores
and Amazon get them on the 15th). So did the Space Wolves Codex for
Warhammer 40,000, as well as the incredibly short printed Space Wolves Data
Cards (Why Games Workshop makes the Data Card sets for the various armies a
short run item is beyond my ken. They are cards, for pity’s sake. Print more.)

As a point of comparison indicating the interest in the two products, we
ordered 8 copies of the Codex and had 3 left as of close on Saturday. The
D&D Player’s Handbook? We ordered 13, which we figured would last for a
week and had sold out by Saturday afternoon, with customers calling from over
60 miles away to make certain we would hold a copy for them so they would not
make the trip in vain. As is typical, few bothered to put in pre-orders for the
book with us, despite our asking for them. Of those that did, exactly 1 put in
a pre-order far enough in advance to allow us to adjust our orders to accommodate
them. Everyone else called in a
pre-ordertwo or three days before our
street date, far too late for us to adjust our orders upwards to take advantage
of the level of interest that increased from a very low level to off the
charts.

From what I have heard from other retailers, they experienced
similar sales of the book with almost all underestimating demand and scrambling
to put in re-orders to arrive next week.

We haven’t seen such excitement over a
non-TCG release since, well, 4th Edition D&D and I could make a
valid argument that interest in D&D 5th edition rivals that of 3rd,
given the levels of disappointment players have expressed in 4th
over the past year and the anticipation with which they have awaited 5th.
It shows, that, while more of our customers play and buy Pathfinder on a day to
day basis, Dungeons & Dragons is still the stronger brand by far, ruling
top of mind both in the hobby game market as well as the casual customer.
According to one of my distributors, Pazio plans to ship the Advanced Class
Guide and, possibly, the Iron Gods campaign book to arrive this Wednesday, just
before GenCon. Needless to say, though we have a strong Pathfinder Society
community locally, no-one has put in a pre-order for a copy of either.

Dungeons & Dragons is, in the eyes of most people
outside of the hobby game industry, THE role playing game. They haven’t seen Pathfinder,
Castles & Crusades, FATE, 13th Age, Numenera or Dark Heresy
played on Community or The Big Bang Theory. Despite the fact that D&D did not rank in
the top 5 sellers according to ICV2’s spring sales
chart, (though lack of new D&D product certainly had something to do
with that), viewers saw Dungeons &
Dragons played and in the viewers’ minds, there are no others. Casual customers
will come in looking for the new D&D books, as they have heard of them
through popular media and we will hopefully sell them a copy of the $20 Starter
Set. While I expect to sell quite a few Advanced Class Guides and fewer copies
of the Iron Gods campaign, I do not expect to have any casual customers coming
in looking for either of those books.

Friday, August 8, 2014

The
heroes of the town of Torch follow a trail of clues to the sprawling
junkyard known as Scrapwall, where bands of desperate and violent
bandits vie for control over the technological leavings and ruins found
within. The Lords of Rust dominate Scrapwall, and their swiftly rising
power threatens more than the town of Torch. For they have the support
of one of the Iron Gods of Numeria, and what slumbers fitfully beneath
the wreckage of Scrapwall could catapult the Lords of Rust into a new
level of power if they’re not stopped!

“Lords
of Rust” is a Pathfinder Roleplaying Game adventure for 4th-level
characters. The adventure continues the Iron Gods Adventure Path, an
exploration of the lands of Numeria, where savage barbarism clashes with
the wonders and horrors of superscience. Several new monsters, an
overview of the villainous Technic League, an exploration of the
clockwork goddess Brigh, and Amber E. Scott’s Pathfinder Journal round
out this volume of the Pathfinder Adventure Path!

PZO9450

Pathfinder Player Companion: Champions of Corruption

$12.99 SRP

SDI

Embrace
your inner villain and command the powers of evil! Along with new
character options like wicked feats, blasphemous spells, and damnable
magic items, this volume contains all the information Pathfinder RPG
players need in order to indulge their dark sides and make the forces of
good quake in their boots.

You’ve
been a herald of good with Pathfinder Player Companion: Champions of
Purity and mastered the forces of neutrality with Champions of Balance;
now embrace the strength of cruelty and revel in wretchedness with
Champions of Corruption!

Written by Paris Crenshaw, Jim Groves, Sean McGowan, Philip Minchin.

PZO6012

Pathfinder Cards: Skull & Shackles: Raiders of the Fever Sea

$19.99 SRP

SDI

Players
set sail upon the pirate-infested high seas in this new Adventure Deck
expansion for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles
Base Set!

This
110-card expansion includes new locations, monsters, villains, loot,
ship-to-ship sea battles, and more, as well as 5 new scenarios that
constitute the complete “Raiders of the Fever Sea” adventure. Chart a
course for victory with the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Raiders of
the Fever Sea Adventure Deck!

PZO3046

Pathfinder Cards: Mummy’s Mask Face Deck

$10.99 SRP

SDI

Give
life to your NPCs with Mummy’s Mask Face Cards! More than 50 key
characters fill this gorgeously illustrated deck designed for use with
the Mummy’s Mask Adventure Path, but suitable for use in any fantasy
roleplaying game!

Each
card includes the character’s name, his or her role in the Mummy’s Mask
Adventure Path, space to record key details, and artwork by Paizo’s
finest illustrators. These Face Cards bring the most prominent cast
members of this tomb raiding Adventure Path to your tabletop and let
your players look into the faces of the enemy!

PZO3045

Pathfinder Cards: Iron Gods Adventure Path Item Cards Deck

$10.99 SRP

SDI

Claim
alien weapons, inscrutable technology, and breakthroughs of
super-science with this collection of radical treasures for use in your
Iron Gods campaign.

Each
of this set’s 54 beautifully illustrated, full-color cards includes
space on the back for players to add notes on their treasures. These
Pathfinder Item Cards are designed for use with the Iron Gods Adventure
Path, but are compatible with any fantasy or sci-fi roleplaying game.

PZO9546

Pathfinder Module: Plunder & Peril

$24.99 SRP

SDI

When
the infamous captain of the Magpie Prince sails into port with a
bizarre treasure map and the promise of fantastic riches, scalawags of
every stripe fight to join her crew. With the heroes aboard, the pirate
vessel sets forth on a race around the treacherous isles of the
Shackles, dodging enemy pirates, scouring shipwrecks, and bilking the
denizens of the deep. But treachery and danger lie beyond every horizon
and it’s up to the heroes to decide whether they’ll win their promised
treasure or a watery grave!

“Plunder
& Peril” shares in the stories of the new Pathfinder Adventure Card
Game: Skull & Shackles, giving Pathfinder fans three exciting new
quests that can stand alone or build upon either the award-winning card
game or the swashbuckling Skull & Shackles Adventure Path. Includes a
giant poster map!

Whether
the vessel of alien invaders or a labyrinth from the far future,
battles from beyond time and space unfold on Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Tech
Dungeon. With a distinct technological dungeon on each side, this
durable accessory can serve as a setting for exploration, battle, or
anything in between in any tabletop fantasy or sci-fi campaign! Don’t
waste your time sketching when you could be playing. With Pathfinder
Flip-Mat: Tech Dungeon, you’ll be ready next time your players pick a
fight!

On
tabletops across the world, the Flip-Mat Revolution is changing the way
players run their fantasy roleplaying games! Why take the time to
sketch out ugly scenery on a smudgy plastic mat when dynamic encounters
and easy clean-up is just a Flip away?

PZOBFPPATHCD004

Pathfinder Legends CD: Rise of the Runelords 4: Fortress of the Stone Giants

$15.99 SRP

SDI

Sandpoint
burns. Marauding Stone Giants are swarming down from the mountains,
raiding every town they find. Can Valeros, Harsk, Merisiel, and Ezren
return in time to protect their new-found home?

Rumors
that the attacks are the first of many spread like wildfire. Are the
giants truly rallying for war under the command of the warlord
Mokmurian? What horrors lie beneath his unholy fortress?

With
Valeros in the clutches of a vengeful dragon, and harpies ready to feed
on their bones, the adventurers must risk all to travel to the stone
giant fortress of Jorgenfist. Karzoug is rising and no one is safe.

Pathfinder
Legends audio dramas adapt the world and characters of the best-selling
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Each episode runs about an hour and
features a cast of professional actors, sound effects, and music that
immerse you into the dangerous and exciting world of Pathfinder!

Thursday, August 7, 2014

This Fall, the
fan-favorite Dragon Ball Z card game, originally released in 2000,
returns with brand new cards based on the show's iconic anime
characters. Completely compatible with original Dragon Ball Z cards and adds to an already successful and balanced card pool . Easy
to learn and captures the look and feel of the popular series for new
fans. Brand new personality and mastery cards bring fresh deck
strategies for returning players. Designed and play-tested by an
experienced group of Dragon Ball Z players, including the 2001 World
Champion.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

I would be remiss if I failed to note that the “perfection
fallacy” I have talked about in the past hurt some retailers seriously
regarding Yu Gi Oh Day last weekend. Once again, Konami, in its effort to have
prize support arrive as closely to the event as possible, overshot the mark
with the promised support not arriving until the week after the event. At least
one store I know spent a month promoting the event with TV ads, then when the
day came, no playmat or tokens to give away. As I commented regarding the last
Yu Gi Oh Day, actions such as this create bad impressions in the minds of both
players and retailers. Eventually, retailers will look for other products to
promote.